Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 17:28     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:Every teen at my job can work 40 hours making ca $30 an hour, but they are calling in 'sick' more often than not.
My own kid is 19 and works 30+ hours usually while in school. He will definitely be working 40 hours a week when school ends in few weeks.
He started at $18 an hour and makes $40+ an hour now. He is good at his job and tries to covers as many shifts as he can. There's so much work that many go uncovered.
I think he likes working.
Ofcourse he maxed out his Roth, but couple of thousand $ has piled up again. He is not a spender though.


What does your teen do?
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 16:22     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:Very anecdotal, but my college aged son applied to at least a dozen crappy jobs last summer and only got one offer. I'm Gen X and back in the day it was easy to get several job offers working landscaping, laborer, fast food, etc.


I'm gen x too. It was crazy easy to get jobs. Mt teen had to apply to so many jobs. I got many through word of mouth and ads. In college too-so easy. Things are definitely different. Now my other kid babysits so she has a whole business going because she's responsible and kids like her a lot. She has people giving her tips, gift cards at the holidays, raises without asking.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 16:15     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I call it total bs. Jobs are there but kids are too lazy to work. Mowing, dog walking, babysitting…etc.


The problem is again minimum wage. Would you rather hire a seasoned babysitter on care.com or a dog walking business or a teen who expects minimum wage? Unless you know the teen really well it's easier to hire someone seasoned for that much money an hour. For mowing you want a service or someone who has used a lawnmower for years to avoid injury. Years ago you hired teens because it was cheap and their parents weren't going to sue if they hurt themselves.


If kids just have 30 minutes that’s fine for dog walking but most aren’t stable jobs. I’d rather my teen lifeguard for $18 an hour.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 16:12     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
My 18yo has worked as a host/food runner for a local restaurant since she was 16. She works 2 evenings a week during the school year and then a little more often in the summer (but not full time.) It’s been challenging for her at times but I think a great life experience. They do not hire summer-only employees and hire mostly through word of mouth.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 16:09     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Very anecdotal, but my college aged son applied to at least a dozen crappy jobs last summer and only got one offer. I'm Gen X and back in the day it was easy to get several job offers working landscaping, laborer, fast food, etc.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 16:06     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Every teen at my job can work 40 hours making ca $30 an hour, but they are calling in 'sick' more often than not.
My own kid is 19 and works 30+ hours usually while in school. He will definitely be working 40 hours a week when school ends in few weeks.
He started at $18 an hour and makes $40+ an hour now. He is good at his job and tries to covers as many shifts as he can. There's so much work that many go uncovered.
I think he likes working.
Ofcourse he maxed out his Roth, but couple of thousand $ has piled up again. He is not a spender though.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 15:42     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I call it total bs. Jobs are there but kids are too lazy to work. Mowing, dog walking, babysitting…etc.


The problem is again minimum wage. Would you rather hire a seasoned babysitter on care.com or a dog walking business or a teen who expects minimum wage? Unless you know the teen really well it's easier to hire someone seasoned for that much money an hour. For mowing you want a service or someone who has used a lawnmower for years to avoid injury. Years ago you hired teens because it was cheap and their parents weren't going to sue if they hurt themselves.


This is based on where you live. I guarantee you all the teens make much higher than minimum wage for babysitting, lawn services, snow shoveling, etc. in our neighborhood. Now, that's maybe perhaps because the lawn businesses or care.com or whomever has to pay a high minimum wage, which drives up the overall cost of their business...and then results in high charges to the end customer.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 15:40     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:These kids can do dog walking, dog sitting, nannying, driving kids to activities, summer camp counselors, after school sport coordinators. These are things that upper middle class and upper class people pay a lot for and it’s hard to find good help. People pay $25-$35 an hour for people to walk dogs or care for kids. I’m always looking for dog sitters and pay $100 a day. The person can work another job at the same time. They just need to walk my dog twice a day and sleep over. I desperately need a driver this summer to drop off and pick kids up from summer camp. That would be 3-4 hours a day and $25 an hour. More than they would make full time at minimum wage. Kids need to be entrepreneurs these days.


Serious question- where do you find your dog walker / sitter or babysitter?
Some teens posted on our NextDoor and everyone was all crazy about how teens could be lured in by creepers and not to advertise with your age or contact information on NextDoor.
So is it all care.com and Rover?



Everyone I know uses our neighborhood list serve (not Nextdoor) and/or word of mouth of parents. I would much rather hire the teenage kid of a neighbor than a complete stranger. If someone else has hired them and vouches for them, that is also great.

I have used Care.com before. I hired our first nanny from this site. I ended up hiring an older person but interviewed a 20 year old who was perfect. She took another job before I could make an offer. My nanny made $50K. I hire dog sitters through word of mouth. Too scared to use Rover based on horror stories.


I have used Rover maybe 50 times. Never a problem. I always meet the person first and I never go further than like a 3 mile radius of my house.

There are horror stories for anything...obviously, a recent horror story is all the people who boarded their pets with that company in downtown DC and there was a freak flood that filled the entire business like up to the ceiling, and all the animals drowned.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 15:30     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:I call it total bs. Jobs are there but kids are too lazy to work. Mowing, dog walking, babysitting…etc.


The problem is again minimum wage. Would you rather hire a seasoned babysitter on care.com or a dog walking business or a teen who expects minimum wage? Unless you know the teen really well it's easier to hire someone seasoned for that much money an hour. For mowing you want a service or someone who has used a lawnmower for years to avoid injury. Years ago you hired teens because it was cheap and their parents weren't going to sue if they hurt themselves.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 15:29     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:These kids can do dog walking, dog sitting, nannying, driving kids to activities, summer camp counselors, after school sport coordinators. These are things that upper middle class and upper class people pay a lot for and it’s hard to find good help. People pay $25-$35 an hour for people to walk dogs or care for kids. I’m always looking for dog sitters and pay $100 a day. The person can work another job at the same time. They just need to walk my dog twice a day and sleep over. I desperately need a driver this summer to drop off and pick kids up from summer camp. That would be 3-4 hours a day and $25 an hour. More than they would make full time at minimum wage. Kids need to be entrepreneurs these days.


Serious question- where do you find your dog walker / sitter or babysitter?
Some teens posted on our NextDoor and everyone was all crazy about how teens could be lured in by creepers and not to advertise with your age or contact information on NextDoor.
So is it all care.com and Rover?



Everyone I know uses our neighborhood list serve (not Nextdoor) and/or word of mouth of parents. I would much rather hire the teenage kid of a neighbor than a complete stranger. If someone else has hired them and vouches for them, that is also great.

I have used Care.com before. I hired our first nanny from this site. I ended up hiring an older person but interviewed a 20 year old who was perfect. She took another job before I could make an offer. My nanny made $50K. I hire dog sitters through word of mouth. Too scared to use Rover based on horror stories.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 15:28     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
It's an economics issue. this is the downside of raising the minimum age. Employers will instead higher fewer workers with higher skills who can do more, hire fewer low skilled workers and work them harder, or find other ways to deal with the increased cost of wages. There are more economically efficient ways to deal with low wage-earning people who have families like subsidies for those low wage earners who need a livable wage. Subsidies reduce unemployment, crime, etc. Then you could still have a low rate per hour (and no subsidy) for high school students and people would be willing to take the risk. Otherwise too much risk and waste of money hiring them.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 14:59     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:Employers do not want to schedule their employees for more than 2 days/shifts a week. Uber, Uber eats and door dash keep the majority of the money from a transaction. After the Ebay fees and shipping costs there is very little money left to actually make any money from an Ebay sale.

Only about 1 out of 100 people who contact sellers on Facebook marketplace actually want to pay what the seller is asking.
YouTube requires millions of views in order to earn any significant money.
Online music streaming platform royalties are laughable unless you are a major music artist.

Years ago when I was a younger person, call centers were the big thing among many younger people but now almost all of those jobs have been sent overseas.


What? You need a financial literacy class.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 14:52     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
I call it total bs. Jobs are there but kids are too lazy to work. Mowing, dog walking, babysitting…etc.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 14:20     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Are you extremely old, OP?

My 75 year old parents worked right out of high school and made a very modest living. All the generations after that did not.

You need to get with the times.

Also, you've already posted about this. Maybe you're suffering from dementia. Stop posting.
Anonymous
Post 04/13/2026 14:18     Subject: Each year it is becoming more and more difficult for young people around 18 to earn decent money..
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP lists call centers has their great opportunity as an 18 year old. That wasn’t a possibility within hundreds of miles of where I grew up.

But odd to say that employers are only offering 1-2 days a week. My DS gets offered way more hours than that. Up to 40 over the summer. He’s 16.


Where does your 16 year old work?
Because I’m seeing the same thing as OP.


My teen, who gets as many hours as he wants at his job, also has many friends who also get plenty of hours at their jobs. My neighbor’s kid found that he wasn’t getting enough hours so he quit that job and got another job.